Category Archives: garden

6×8 Harbor Freight Greenhouse Assembly

March 7, 2013 daddykirbs 19 Comments

I am very excited for this years garden! I have a greenhouse! 6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly. This is the first greenhouse I’ve ever owned. It’s not very big, but it should give me a nice place start my seeds and over winter some of the plants. My small Lemon tree will appreciate that.

These Harbor Freight deals can be pretty good. This greenhouse was on sale for $299 and they allowed me to use another 20% coupon on top of that. I was going to build my own greenhouse from scratch, but the cost savings here changed my mind.

This was from my garden last year. I have dreams
of greater success this year. My greenhouse is
bolstering my confidence! 🙂

Best of all, now that I have it I can SAVE MONEY! I used to buy all my plants for the garden, but now I can start from seeds. Plants can cost $4 each. A seed packet is usually around $1. Each seed packet can start 50 plants or more.

6×8 Harbor Freight Greenhouse Assembly

6x8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly on unfinished framed foundation. — 6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly:
On unfinished framed foundation.

6x8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly: Angled View — 6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly:
Angled View

6x8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly: Front View — 6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly:
Front View

6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly:
Built on a Custom Framed Short Wall Foundation

6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly video

In this video you will probably notice that I can hardly contain myself 🙂 I feel like a little kid with a new club house or something. Only here… I am inviting you into my club, not keeping you out! LOL.

After my introduction I have a series of video clips that show how the greenhouse went together. I don’t think you should use this as a stand alone “how-to“, but it might assist you in the process of building.

I wanted to share with you how I started my tomato seeds in the greenhouse too. I really don’t know what I’m doing so forgive my mess! This video shows that process.

Most of my tomato seeds this year were purchased from +Gary Pilarchik at The Rusted Garden.

You won’t find a nicer guy to buy seeds from 😉 He specializes in heirloom tomatoes. I chose to use the heirloom tomatoes this year because I’d like to learn how to save seeds for myself. By the way, Gary has videos on his blog about how to do that.

After the building and planting and the time it takes me to get a blog post up… here is an example of a little tomato seed that decided to love me back.

daddykirbs Garden Blog: Tomato Seed Sprouting

My little girl wanted to join in on the fun so she started one of the black sunflower seeds from the bag of chicken scratch. She grew some last year too 🙂

daddykirbs Garden Blog: Sunflower Seed Sprouting

We started a row of these in the raised beds too. We read that Sunflowers make Cucumbers taste better so we will start the Cucumbers near these.

I loved in elementary school when we got to start Sweet Potatoes in little cups! I decided to try it again here in the greenhouse. These are holdovers from the very few that I grew last year. These will be planted in the Hugel Beds up by the Orchard.

6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly

6x8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly — Click on the image to visit the YouTube video about the construction of this greenhouse!

6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly with my helper

6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly:
Constructing the Short Wall

6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly:
Framing Done

Update:

Looks like I didn’t fail completely 🙂 Almost all of the seeds have sprouted.

Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse: Beautiful Tomato Sprouts

6×8’ greenhouse kit
greenhouse for sale harbor freight

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!

garden

My Garden 2013: The Start of My Cantaloupe Bed

February 27, 2013 daddykirbs Leave a comment

Last year we had some mild success at growing Cantaloupe Melons. We love this fruit! This year I decided to try again. I have a raised bed dedicated to Watermelon and Cantaloupe.

The wire cages I’m using this year are not ideal for Cantaloupe, but they worked ok last year. These are normal wire Tomato cages. These will not be used for Tomatoes. The Cantaloupe will vine along the ground, but can be trained to go along a trellis as well. I will train mine to wind around these wire Tomato cages.

Cantaloupe Planting – Daddykirbs Garden Blog

Notice that I tied the tops of the cages together. This is done for support. Each cage on it’s own isn’t very sturdy so they tend to lean over. With each of them supporting each other they should stand the weight of the plant and fruit on them.

Here is a short video that explains the process.

Here are some advertised products that could help in your garden:

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!

garden

My Orchard Irrigation Mistake: and How I Fixed It.

February 18, 2013 daddykirbs 2 Comments

I added an irrigation line to the orchard. Nice! … but I made a mistake. What? a mistake? yes yes… sometimes I make mistakes… Ok, I am a mistake maker. Now that you know that I’m not perfect here’s what happened.

I thought it would be cool to run six hose connections to the six rows of trees. I also thought it would be cool to reuse some items that I had laying around so I could save some money.

The original plan was to put a regular hose bib for the connections… so I did. There’s part of the mistake. The other part of the mistake was that I used an eight inch sewer pipe cut into sections for the “holes”. This is nice except the angle of the hose bib doesn’t allow for the hose to connect without crimping inside that eight inch hole. Take a look at this video to see what I’m talking about.

Now… I couldn’t leave it like that, right? Of course not.

I shut the water off and pulled all those hose bibs out. Here are the components that I used to fix it.

From left to right: Sprinkler Head Riser Pipe, PVC Ball Valve, Brass Hose Connector Fitting.

Parts for Fixing Irrigation Mistake – Daddykirbs Garden Blog

All the parts assembled.

Fixing Irrigation Mistake – Daddykirbs Garden Blog

And here it is MUCH BETTER! 🙂

Irrigation Mistake Fixed – Daddykirbs Garden Blog

Here are some advertised products that could help fix some of your mistakes! 🙂

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!

farm, garden, projects

My First Hugelkulture Garden Bed

February 12, 2013 daddykirbs 8 Comments

Permaculture? What is it? Well I’m still learning to answer that question for myself, but basically it’s designing our environment more like nature. When we mimic nature our gardens will thrive and be more self sustaining. We help the soil along by providing more materials like compost, clippings, mulch and in the case of Hugelkulture we bury wood.

It is my goal to use my farm in a more sustainable way. Or as a gardening buddy of mine on Google+, +Dan Grubbs, says “regenerative”. The idea of restoring our land to a more fertile and fruitful existence.

This is all new to me too. I’m learning right along side you. Here is my first experiment with Hugelkulture. As the experiment goes along I’ll add pictures and video to this post. So, bookmark it and come back! 🙂

Watch this video 🙂

Starting the Hugelkulture Bed – Daddykirbs Garden Blog

This next video shows some of the “next steps” I took to make this bed work better.

Finally I was able to plant the beds. Check out my berry bush plants going in in this video.

Since that first bed felt so good… I built a second. Here is a series of pics for that second bed.

Daddykirbs Garden: Hugel Bed #2 Logs covers with mulch – view from the South

Daddykirbs Garden: Hugel Bed #2 Logs covers with mulch – view from the North

Daddykirbs Garden: Hugel Bed #2 Covered with first layer of dirt

Daddykirbs Garden: Hugel Bed #2 Layered with horse manure compost

Daddykirbs Garden: Hugel Bed #2 Layered with horse manure compost – view from the South (Awesome shot of my beautiful little ‘bota in the background)

Daddykirbs Garden: Hugel Bed #2 Layered with horse manure compost

Daddykirbs Garden: Hugel Bed #2 Final layer of mulch/dirt blend.

Pin This 🙂

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!

farm, garden

Why Does Compost Produce Steam?

February 11, 2013 daddykirbs Leave a comment

In the end compost is dirt. But how does it become dirt and why does it produce steam in the process?

Good questions.

I’m not a scientist but here’s the break down (get it? “break down”… oh never mind).

A compost pile could start from a pile of leaves or wood mulch or lawn grass clippings… or, many other things. These materials all contain carbon (often called “brown material”) and nitrogen (often called “green material”). Some materials are higher is carbon and others are higher in nitrogen. Both ingredients are needed for the pile to start the process of composting or decomposing.

Yes, decomposing… all living material can become dirt once it dies and is left to nature.

The compost pile has microbes. A microbe is a a microorganism. These microbes are alive and they are the reason a compost pile can decompose. These little critters start eating the material that are in the compost pile. In the process of eating and digesting they also give off heat as a byproduct. The moisture in the pile is heated up and turns to gas. This is the steam that can be seen as you turn a hot pile of compost.

There ya have it. A condensed science lesson that should raise more questions than it answers! Hey, I said I’m not a scientist 🙂

Here’s a video that shows a pile that is alive and steaming. We are adding dried leaves (carbon) to the hot pile of horse manure (nitrogen).

Compost Pile Steaming – Daddykirbs Garden Blog

for a more complete scientific explanation of what goes on in the process check this out:

http://web.extension.illinois.edu/homecompost/science.html

Here are some advertised products for your composting pleasure 🙂

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!

Hi! I'm Blake. Online I go by "Daddykirbs". My farm and blog is a place to learn about my journey with Permaculture, Homesteading, Gardening and more. Thanks for visiting!

6×8 Harbor Freight Greenhouse Assembly

6×8 harbor freight greenhouse assembly video

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Hi! I'm Blake. Online I go by "Daddykirbs". My farm and blog is a place to learn about my journey with Permaculture, Homesteading, Gardening and more. Thanks for visiting!